Question

Is the private member access at the class level or at the object level. If it is at the object level, then the following code should not compile

    class PrivateMember {    private int i;    public PrivateMember() {       i = 2;    }    public void printI() {       System.out.println('i is: '+i);    }    public void messWithI(PrivateMember t) {       t.i *= 2;    }    public static void main (String args[]) {       PrivateMember sub = new PrivateMember();       PrivateMember obj = new PrivateMember();       obj.printI();       sub.messWithI(obj);       obj.printI();    } } 

Please clarify if accessing the member i of obj within the messWithI() method of sub is valid

Answer 1

As DevSolar has said, it’s at the (top level) class level.

From section 6.6 of the Java Language Specification:

Otherwise, if the member or constructor is declared private, then access is permitted if and only if it occurs within the body of the top level class (§7.6) that encloses the declaration of the member or constructor.

Note that there’s no indication that it’s restricted to members for a particular object.

As of Java 7, the compiler no longer allows access to private members of type variables. So if the method had a signature like public <T extends PrivateMember> void messWithI(T t) then it would be a compiler error to access t.i. That wouldn’t change your particular scenario, however.